


bodies in motion, bodies at rest

by bevmantle



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, More of a bittersweet ending but. ya, Selectively Mute Gordon Freeman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27344878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bevmantle/pseuds/bevmantle
Summary: “Barney!” Gordon says. “It’s me! Gordon! From Black Mesa!”Barney’s mouth is a hard line as he casts his eyes sideways. When he speaks, his voice is soft and bitter as black coffee from the old breakroom. “Where’ve you been, Gordon?”
Relationships: Barney Calhoun/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 6
Kudos: 149





	bodies in motion, bodies at rest

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this art by agendersynth](https://agendersynth.tumblr.com/post/625127739074150400/thinking-abt-if-barney-wasnt-so-laid-back-when) on tumblr that i cant stop thinking about!!
> 
> sorry if there are any small inaccuracies wrt canon.. im kinda new to hl and just started playing hl2 recently but i love everyones work so much ive been really inspired to write lately ;u;

Gordon figures he’ll wait and see how this plays itself out. He lets himself be led down the hall, past the door where someone is screaming. Lets himself be shoved into another room. He spares a glance at the bloodstain on the floor. Gordon clenches one hand and makes a fist behind his back. He’s patient. He’ll wait.

When the guard removes his mask, Gordon sags with relief and thinks he remembers what it feels like to believe in a higher power. He relaxes his fist and rushes forward to pull the other man into a tight embrace. The guard tenses, and Gordon feels it. He releases him and steps back to sign.

“Barney!” he says. “It’s me! Gordon! From Black Mesa!”

Barney’s mouth is a hard line as he casts his eyes sideways. When he speaks, his voice is soft and bitter as black coffee from the old breakroom. “Where’ve you been, Gordon?”

Gordon blinks. He feels off-balance, suddenly unsure what he had expected.

“For the love of—we don’t have time for this!” Barney says, turning back towards the computers. “You’re here now, so you’d better get over to Kleiner’s.”

Gordon hesitates, then nods.

Barney calls up Kleiner and lets him know Gordon is on his way.

“Go,” he says. “You’re gonna have to make your own way, but seein’ as you’ve been doing that the last twenty years...you’ll be fine.”

Gordon hesitates again, hands fluttering with aborted words and half-made phrases.

Heavy footsteps echo in the hallway, and Barney’s mouth curls into a snarl.

“Get a move on, Gordon!”

Gordon is patient. He can wait. He glances once more in Barney’s direction, then leaves through the back. He feels Barney’s eyes on him the whole way out.

By the time they meet up again at White Forest, Gordon almost feels like another twenty years have passed between them. It’s the first chance he’s had to catch his breath in a long time, but even so, the loss of Eli hangs heavy over everything. Gordon’s hands had trembled at his sides while the Vortigaunt doctor had examined him for injuries and he still thinks, no matter how irrational, that if he had been stronger, or faster, or smarter, Eli might still be alive.

Gordon is patient, but he’s not a saint. It’s not long before he seeks Barney out, knocking on the door to his quarters in the middle of the night because he knows that Barney isn’t sleeping.

Barney opens the door and steps aside, letting Gordon in without a word. They’d fought together, seen each other here and there in passing, survived despite everything—but they hadn’t talked. Gordon wrings his hands. He wants to talk.

Barney closes the door, then pushes past Gordon and sits down heavily at the desk. Bits of tactical plans and maps cover the surface. More are pinned up on the walls. Gordon steps further into the room, gingerly lowering himself onto the edge of Barney’s bed. He wants to talk, but finds himself unsure of what to say. So he waits.

After a moment, Barney heaves a sigh, not really looking at him. “Gordon...why’re you here?”

Gordon shrugs. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Barney gives him a funny look. “Dunno if we have much of anything to talk about.”

Gordon feels Barney’s words somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach. He feels his hands start to tremble, and he clenches them tightly, just for a second. He sees Barney’s eyes flicker towards the movement.

“I really miss you, Barney,” Gordon says. He signs Barney’s name, the sign for ventilation, the sign for fresh air. It feels like an echo of another time, something from a dream.

Barney shakes his head. “You don’t. Don’t say that.” His voice is tight.

“Yes I do,” Gordon says, his signs sharp. “We’ve barely spoken to each other outside of combat. Of course I miss you.”

“I _mourned_ you, Gordon!” Barney snaps, jabbing his index finger down into his thigh. “I said my goodbyes and I mourned you because I thought you were dead! Then you just come waltzing into City 17 like it was nothing...fucking shit, Gordon, it’s been twenty goddamn years!”

Gordon feels Barney’s words in his stomach again and he makes two fists to steady himself, letting all of his trembling feelings flow down his arms and through his hands and out of his body. He’s patient. He can be patient.

Barney takes a deep breath, raking a hand through his hair. His hair is getting long, Gordon notices, a couple strands falling over his brow. It’s streaked through with gray.

“Look, Gordon,” Barney says. “I just...I can’t, okay? You don’t get to just pop in and out of people’s lives and—and—it’s not about _me,_ okay? There’s people, regular people, depending on this. On everything here. On me, even. I can’t throw that away for something I wanted twenty years ago.”

“It wasn’t twenty years ago,” Gordon says, “for me.” He places his hands in his lap. He sees Barney set his jaw, sees the vein work in Barney’s neck.

“Well I’m—I’m sorry,” Barney says. “But wherever you were, we were _here,_ fighting. You—y’can’t just—” He takes another steadying breath. “You’re just one person, Gordon. I know everyone’s been tellin’ you you’re some messiah, but...you’re just a person. Same as any of us.”

Gordon feels something hot and mean flash inside of him. “I’m the One Free Man,” he says, making sure his mocking tone gets across, fingerspelling _One_ and combining it with the pidgin sign people have adopted when speaking to him, the one that means _Savior._

“So what?” Barney says harshly. “So what? I know you’ve been helpful, God knows you’ve been _more_ than that, okay, Gordon, you’re a good fighter and you’re smart but—the revolution ain’t gonna be won by you or any other single person! I just—I need to focus on gettin’ everyone on the same page, makin’ sure folks’re trained and ready, keepin’ everyone safe, because if we don’t work together we’re _fucked,_ really fucked, and I—even if I hadn’t spent the last twenty years gettin’ over you, I don’t have _time_ for you right now, just because you came back, alright?”

Gordon doesn’t know what to say to that. He just sits there, letting his anger roll inside him and wash through him, trying to breathe it out on the exhales. When it’s gone, he finds something else beneath it: sorrow, deep and lonely. Grief, old and new. The fresh wound of Eli’s death held next to the first shocks of the Resonance Cascade. Gordon tries to fill in the twenty years between them and comes up short. What does twenty years feel like? He’s barely been alive that long. He could have lived another lifetime during the time he’d been held in stasis. Everyone else had. Barney had.

“A few weeks ago,” Gordon says finally, “You waved at me from the tram. We met up in the breakroom. I had been dreaming about kissing you for months. Tried to ask you over for dinner, but you had a late shift. You promised to make it up to me...I saw you blush when you offered. Your tie was loose, you were holding your helmet and your hair was a mess.”

Barney watches Gordon speak, rapt. He swallows. “That was a different time, Gordon.”

“But you felt it,” Gordon says.

“I—” Barney looks up at the ceiling, then back at Gordon. “We weren’t anything, Gordon. We were coworkers, I was—it doesn’t matter.”

“If we weren’t anything,” Gordon says, “then why did you mourn for me?”

“Because I loved you!” Barney snaps. “You were the only thing that made gettin’ up in the morning worth it. The only reason I stayed in that shithole job. But I can’t, okay? This whole thing, everything we’ve been working for, it’s bigger than me, and I can’t risk being the cause of any situation where I’d have to choose between _you_ and _everyone_ because my answer _has_ to be everyone. We’re in a war and love is a luxury, and I can’t—I—I just _can’t,_ okay?”

Gordon huffs. “You’re being dramatic,” he says, “and you’re wrong. You wouldn’t be fighting if you didn’t love anyone. None of us would be. If you don’t love me just say it. But don’t act like you can’t, or you like you won’t. I know you, Barn.”

Barney doesn’t say anything, just sits there glowering. Gordon shrugs, standing up. “Anyway, it’s fine. I wanted to talk, and I guess we did. Sorry to bother you so late. We should both get some rest.” He stops in the doorway. Barney looks at him. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Barney shakes his head, incredulous. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Gordon considers it. “Well, I’m the One Free Asshole, I guess.”

Barney snorts despite himself, then heaves a sigh. “Look, Gordon...I haven’t been sleepin’ too well lately. If you want to stay...you can, alright?”

Gordon thinks about it. “Define ‘stay’?”

“Just...sit with me. Rest. That’s all.” Barney takes another deep breath. “I can’t promise anything. I know, for you, we were just, uh, on the verge of things, but...I’m just not there anymore. I’m old and I’m tired all the time and I’m—well, I’m scared, if I’m being totally honest with you, and, so...Yeah.”

Gordon nods, stepping out of the doorway and back into Barney’s room. “I’ll stay.”

“I’m still hurtin’, mind,” Barney says. “I’m angry and I—” He stops and swallows. “But I’ll...I’ll try. Okay?”

“Okay,” Gordon says, and it is.

Barney gets into bed and pauses, then pats the space next to him. Gordon turns the light out and slots himself in next to Barney, almost-but-not-quite touching.

It’s not long before Barney’s asleep and snoring lightly. Gordon lets the unfamiliar dark of Barney’s room press against him. It reminds him, almost, of the HEV suit. He can feel the weight of the last twenty years there in the dark with him, feels the weight of everything he missed, every win and loss, every life and death. He feels it mounting into _too much, too much too much._ Gordon focuses, instead, on Barney’s breathing. He times his own breaths to match. Gordon is patient. He can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading, please leave a comment/kudos if u liked it! also u can drop me a line on tumblr at [jewishbubby](https://jewishbubby.tumblr.com/). thank uuu


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